Friday, December 04, 2009

The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 10 percent in November as employers cut the smallest number of jobs since the recession began. The better-than-expected job figures are a rare note of encouraging news for the labor market.

Hooray! Sure, we're still losing quarts of blood, but we're just losing them slower. Isn't that good news?

n January 2008, the United States economy employed 138.1 million people and the unemployment rate stood at 4.9%. But the powers in Washington thought deficit spending could boost a slowing economy, so Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) passed and President George Bush signed a $168 billion economic stimulus bill made up of temporary tax cuts and increased mortgage grantees for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. By January 2009 that economic stimulus worked so well that the U.S. economy had lost 3.5 million jobs and the unemployment rate stood at 7.6%. Again the powers in Washington thought deficit spending was the answer, so Speaker Nancy Pelosi and newly minted President Barack Obama dialed up $787 billion in temporary tax cuts and permanent spending increases. Ten months later, the U.S. economy has now shed another 3.59 million jobs and the unemployment rate stand at 10%.

At this rate, the Democrats really will spend us into a Great Depression. But at least they're doing something, right?

Recent Comments

Endorsements! (Idea Stolen from Dana)

"She’s that sad creature called the sister punisher/colluder---a woman who hopes that if she hates women even more than the men in her life, she gets to be “better” than other women. A fool, in other words, unaware that the sexist men she loves so much think she’s a joke." -- Amanda Marcotte

"You really are one of the biggest pricks I've encountered on the web" -- Jeromy Brown

"You’re a cartoon caricature of the Limbaugh ditto-head" --Mike G

"You are a sadist, a fool, *and* a liar" -- Phoenicians in the Time of Romans

"Yours is the mark of an absolutist who is never wrong, always right" -- Perry